The Knockout Stages

I’m going to do this as quick as possible because of the computer caused delay.

Here’s the new ratings including all games as of the end of the Group Stages (though not counting the just completed game between Uruguay and South Korea). The two biggest things to note here is Italy dropping out of the Top 10 and Argentina edging past England into fourth place.

Here’s the table with the chances of each team going out at each stage. These are not sims as the results can now be calculated directly since goal differentials no longer complicate things. I’ll make a few comments below on this.

And here are the goal predictions and advancement chances for all eight of the Group of 16 matches. Slovakia is the biggest underdog against the Dutch. The English and the Germans have the closest matchup:

Team            Goals    Advance%
Uruguay          1.44      66.53%
Korea Republic   0.85      33.47%

USA              1.44      59.66%
Ghana            1.08      40.34%

Netherlands      2.21      84.75%
Slovakia         0.68      15.25%

Brazil           1.90      78.46%
Chile            0.76      21.54%

Mexico           1.17      38.02%
Argentina        1.63      61.98%

England          1.42      54.02%
Germany          1.27      45.98%

Japan            0.89      42.17%
Paraguay         1.15      57.83%

Portugal         0.81      36.16%
Spain            1.28      63.84%

All of these numbers are _before_ the outcome of the Uruguay/South Korea match. I’d have loved to gotten this in ahead of that game, but the Blue Screen of Death has no mercy. You’ll have to trust me that I didn’t thumb the scales any.

My American team looks like they would make the semis roughly 1 in 4 tries. Considering the semis are more or less uncharted territory for us, that’s fine with me. Fingers crossed for the match later today.

A lot has been made about the difficulty Germany and England face due to the draw, but the reality is that it’s done Argentina no favors either. They’ve got to get through two top 10 teams just to get to the semis where they potentially could face Spain.

The odds for the Brazilians and Dutch have both gone up considerably due to a favorable draw. Chile drew the short straw and must try and deal with Brazil.

As others have mentioned, this tournament has been tough on both Africa and Europe. Europe will only have three teams in the quarterfinals and Ghana is Africa’s last hope. Impressively, every South American team advanced to the knockout stages.

The tournament is predicted to be won 61.2% of the time by either Brazil, Spain or the Netherlands. No other team cracked 8%.

Enjoy.